Recording Your Sources—the Bibliography
You will need to use a range of resources for your project. Be sure to record those sources in a bibliography.
In a bibliography, list all the materials (provide citations) you used to prepare your project. If you looked at a book, TV show, Web site, etc., and summarized any material from it, then you must include a reference in your bibliography.
Sometimes you may see a bibliography referred to as “Works Cited” or a “Reference List.” Those terms are used interchangeably. A Works Cited list indicates the sources you have actually quoted—usually in an essay. Since you will probably not use quotes in your presentation, do not use the term Works Cited.
The proper format for a bibliography is alphabetical order by last names of authors, editors, translators, etc., or by first words of titles if no author is named.
You can do this by hand or use one of the tools on the Internet, such as The Citation Machine.
You should use the MLA style for your bibliography. Click on this link to the Writer’s Style Guide for information on how to write your list. Examples are provided for various resource types in a bibliography.
Bibliography Summary
Once you have completed your research, you will have a series of sheets that contain information on all your subtopics. You will also have the necessary bibliographic information.
Completing a bibliography for your presentation will be easy if you have filled in all the information on your note sheets. When you find a resource, the first thing to do is write down the bibliographic information.
